Sensitive data in strings (for example, passwords) may reside in memory (in SCP) for a long time. Being a cache, the SCP takes advantage of special treatment from the garbage collector. More precisely, the SCP is not visited by the garbage collector with the same frequency (cycles) as other memory zones. As a consequence of this special treatment, sensitive data is kept in the SCP for a long time, and can be prone to unwanted usages.

In order to avoid this potential drawback, it is advisable to store sensitive data (for example, passwords) in char[] instead of String.